Medics do nursing

Medical students should have to complete a week of hospital nursing before being allowed to qualify as doctors. Too often, medical students and recently qualified doctors do not fully understand the work of nurses, and this can affect standards of work. Whether they are the nurse in charge or the auxiliary nurse, nurses are highly important and yet many doctors fail to make regular use of their knowledge and unique understanding of patients. The relationship between doctor and nurse can be a difficult one and can sometimes be volatile and unproductive.

Introducing a compulsory three day work placement as a healthcare assistant or auxiliary nurse into the medical curriculum would be greatly beneficial to students when they qualify as they will be equipped with the knowledge of how to work in a multidisciplinary environment with other healthcare professionals.

From my personal experience of working part time as an auxiliary nurse alongside my medical studies, I have been taken aback by the indifference and apathetic response towards me from doctors when I am in my nurse's uniform.

Some medical schools in the United Kingdom currently do offer such placements to medical students, but there should be a widespread introduction in all medical curriculums in order to generate sustainable changes in attitudes. The placement would give newly qualified doctors an extra edge when working in teams, allow them to engage with nurses' feelings more readily, and pave the way for more productive team work.

Ultimately, only by working as a nurse can someone know what the job really entails. Learning about empathy and multidisciplinary working methods in lectures only goes so far. Practical learning goes much further to develop understanding, and students doing these placements will recall their experience for many years to come.

Patient care is ultimately the common goal that brings professionals together to work for the greater good.

There are often definite barriers between doctors and nurses, however, that can prevent a strong and effective working relationship, and much of this is due to attitudes that have built up over many years. “Nurses' readiness to be slighted and doctors' reluctance to be challenged create an undercurrent of tension.”¹ These attitudes are common in many hospital teams and are usually accepted methods of practice that occur instinctively rather than intentionally. A change in attitude is a process that requires efforts from doctors and nurses over the long term, but introducing the world of nursing as early as possible to training doctors would certainly be a beginning.

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A short nursing placement for medical students is a workable and effective solution to a chronic problem that is present in many hospital teams, and it is high time that the situation changed.

1. Salvage J, Smith R. Doctors and nurses: doing it differently. BMJ 2000;320:1019-20.